Many years ago, Satch and I had a small gallery at Midland Arts and Antiques in Indianapolis, Indiana. We hosted an exceptional show of a part of our vernacular photography collection. In mind of the challenges that we are facing today, I decided to put this exhibition online so people could view and enjoy these wonderful photographs thereby allowing themselves a brief respite. Here’s the exhibition:
Vintage Vernacular Photography
Scenes from Europe and the United Kingdom
Since the inception of photography, photographs have been made, used, collected, and discarded in greatly increasing numbers. Despite the photograph’s persistent presence in daily life, until recently most types of everyday photography have remained unexamined by historians and have been absent from the walls of art museums. In response to this omission, some scholars have begun to consider photography as a “vernacular” practice.
Vernacular photography refers to the creation of photographs by amateur or unknown photographers who take everyday life and common things as subjects. Also, the use of vernacular photography in the arts is almost as old as photography itself. Vernacular photography has become far more commonplace in recent years as an art technique and is now a widely accepted genre of art photography.
Click to view the gallery of photographs (all are original gelatin prints, information noted after title as found on verso of photographs):
Ron Kern Photographer and Author 
Thank you for sharing this. I think the vernacular is especially relevant today, innthis crisis. These are the roots of street photography, and journalism is informed by these sometimes hasty compositions. Contemporary film is also influenced by the vernacular. Thanks for making these available. Tell Satch I miss her space and smart shows and hope we can all get together when this passes.